Defunct Basketball Team Names

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional men's basketball league, currently consisting of 30 teams in North America (29 in the United States and one in Canada).

The league began in New York City in 1946, as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). It adopted the name National Basketball Association (NBA) at the start of the 1949–50 season when it absorbed the National Basketball League (NBL).

At some point, we will have posted about all the NBA teams' name origins. Some of them are fairly obvious; some are not. But an interesting side note is the now-defunct basketball teams and their name origins. There have been 15 defunct NBA franchises.

One of those defunct teams and names is the Providence Steamrollers. They were a BAA team based in Providence, Rhode Island. They were one of the original eleven Basketball Association of America teams, and they posted an all-time record of 46–122 (.274) before folding after three seasons.

The Steamrollers still hold the dubious NBA record for the fewest games won in a season, six, in the 1947–48 season.

During the 1947–48 season, the Steamrollers' coach, Nat Hickey, activated himself as a player for one game two days before his 46th birthday, setting a still-standing record as the oldest player in NBA history.

The team took its name from the NFL franchise that was also called the Providence Steamrollers. They won the NFL championship in 1928 and are the last NFL champion to no longer be in the league. The Providence Steam Roller (also referred to as the Providence Steam Rollers, the Providence Steamroller and the Providence Steamrollers) was a football team from 1925 to 1931. Providence was the first New England team to win an NFL championship. Most of their home games were played in the small 10,000-seat stadium that was built for bicycle races called the Cycledrome.

The Providence team was established in 1916 by two staffers at the Providence Journal - sports editor Charles Coppen and part-time sports writer Pearce Johnson. During halftime of one game, Charles Coppen heard a spectator remark that the opposing Providence team was "getting steamrolled." He liked that remark so much that he named his team the Steam Roller.

As of this writing, the Steamrollers remain the last professional sports franchise from one of the Big Four leagues to be based in Rhode Island.  

One defunct team whose name has survived is the Denver Nuggets. The original Nuggets joined the NBL for the 1948–49 season, and then joined the NBA after the merger for the 1949–50 season. The Nuggets were the first major professional sports franchise in Colorado, and the first NBA franchise west of the Mississippi.

In 1950, the Nuggets were one of seven teams, including Anderson Packers, Chicago Stags, Sheboygan Red Skins, St. Louis Bombers, Washington Capitols, Waterloo Hawks, that dropped out of the National Basketball Association altogether.

When the Denver Rockets of the American Basketball Association (ABA) joined the NBA, a contest was held in 1974 to give the team a new nickname since the NBA already had the Houston Rockets. The "Nuggets" name, which referenced Colorado's days of gold mining for nuggets, was selected for the new team.

The current Denver Nuggets also started out in the same venue as the original Nuggets, the Denver Auditorium Arena, playing there from 1967 to 1975. They now play their home games at Pepsi Center, which they share with the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League (NLL).

Utah Jazz

The Utah Jazz is a professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is currently a member of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). 

The franchise began in 1974 as the New Orleans Jazz, based in New Orleans, Louisiana, but the team moved to Utah in 1979 after just five seasons. In New Orleans, the Jazz had $5 million in losses over five years. Original owner Sam Battistone decided to move to Salt Lake City, even though it was a smaller market than New Orleans at the time.

After the move to Utah, the team and fans thought it was odd that they kept the name "Jazz" despite the fact that the state of Utah has little to do with the jazz scene. "What's next? The New Orleans Saints will move to Utah and become the Utah Saints?"  But the name stuck.

Though Salt Lake City was not known for any jazz music culture, the team decided to keep the name, as well as the team's original colors of green, purple, and gold (the colors of Mardi Gras). Some musicians were offended by the Jazz keeping the franchise name after moving from New Orleans, citing it as a metaphor for the theft of Jazz from its cultural roots.

The Jazz were one of the least successful teams in the league in their early years. Although 10 seasons elapsed before the Jazz qualified for their first playoff appearance in 1984, they did not miss the playoffs again until 2004. During the late 1980s, John Stockton and Karl Malone arose as the franchise players for the team and formed one of the most famed pick-and-roll duos in NBA history. Led by coach Jerry Sloan, who took over from Frank Layden in 1988, they became one of the powerhouse teams of the 1990s, culminating in two NBA Finals appearances in 1997 and 1998, where they lost both times to the Chicago Bulls.

More at Utah Jazz - Wikipedia

Chicago Bulls

Why is the basketball team called the Chicago BULLS?  Dick Klein wanted a name that evoked Chicago's traditional meat-packing industry (similarly to the forerunner Packers franchise) and the Chicago Stadium's proximity to the Union Stock Yards. Klein considered names like Matadors or Toreadors, but dismissed them, saying, "If you think about it, no team with as many as three syllables in its nickname has ever had much success except for the Montreal Canadiens." He chose the short Bulls version.

The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago and compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Central Division of the Eastern Conference.

The team was founded on January 16, 1966, and played its first game during the 1966–67 NBA season. The Bulls play their home games at the United Center, which they share with the National Hockey League's Chicago Blackhawks; both teams previously played at the now-demolished Chicago Stadium.

Michael Jordan 
Photo:Steve Lipofsky Basketballphoto.com - CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

The Bulls saw their greatest success during the 1990s when they played a major part in popularizing the NBA worldwide. They are known for having one of the NBA's greatest dynasties, winning six NBA championships between 1991 and 1998 with two three-peats. All six of their championship teams were led by Hall of Famers Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and coach Phil Jackson. 

The Bulls are the only NBA franchise to win multiple championships while never losing an NBA Finals series in their history. The Bulls won 72 games during the 1995–96 season, setting an NBA record that stood until the Golden State Warriors won 73 games during the 2015–16 season. The Bulls were the first team in NBA history to win 70 games or more in a single season, and the only NBA franchise to do so until the 2015–16 Warriors.